


learning how to drown

by Bookdancer



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Deaf Clint Barton, Don’t copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Sirens, WinterHawk Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23940214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookdancer/pseuds/Bookdancer
Summary: Clint is a sailor, Bucky is a siren, and it goes a little like this.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo





	learning how to drown

**Author's Note:**

> written for winterhawk bingo 2019, fill for square B2: siren AU
> 
> i'm getting this in right at the deadline whoops
> 
> i do not own the avengers, and this has been cross-posted to both tumblr (@bookdancerfics) and ff.net (Bookdancer)
> 
> thanks as always to my beta @queenofmoons67 (tumblr handle)
> 
> i hope you all enjoy!

When Clint first decides to sail the open seas, it goes a little like this:

His parents are five years gone but the scars his father left will never leave him. Barney goes drinking with Jacques and Trickshot every night, pretends he doesn’t know Clint knows what they do after. Clint pays his brother’s bail week after week till their money is gone and the authorities get so fed up with the repeated charges that they lock Barney up with no hope of Clint ever paying his way out.

Clint visits Barney in jail and his brother is sober for the first time in what seems like months.

“You’ll never amount to anything,” Barney tells him through the bars, and there’s a scowl on his face that Clint will see in both his nightmares and his dreams. “If the storms don’t get you then the sirens will.”

When Clint first goes looking for a ship, it goes a little like this:

Three different captains look at him, 18 years old and obviously muscled with arms good for sea work, and they all hire him on the spot. He lasts one day with the first, three with the second, and finally two full weeks with the third before they realize he can’t hear if they’re too quiet or he’s not looking at them, and then they all fire him on the spot, too.

It’s the fourth captain who doesn’t seem to care what he can or cannot hear.

“You’re a good worker,” Rogers tells him. “And that’s what matters.”

Clint hauls the sails and stands lookout and learns how to read the maps in the stars. His crewmates have to get his attention before speaking to him, and he can’t hear them at all when he’s up high on the masts, but it turns out his arms, so good for sea work, are good for talking, too. He’s heard of people who know how to sign with their hands, and he takes inspiration from them. He makes signals for “land,” and “whales,” and even “it’s freezing up here someone get me a coat.”

For all that Barney warned him about sirens, he doesn’t think to have a sign for them until he needs it, and it goes a little like this:

The sky is turning from cloudy blue to the color of Banner’s cheeks when Stark flirts with him. Rogers swings their ship around a craggy outcropping and suddenly they’re there.

Clint sees scantily clad people resting on rocks in the middle of the ocean, and he turns to Thor hauling the sails’ ropes and screams even as he covers his ears.

Thor turns, looks at him, and Clint keeps yelling “sirens!” until he sees realization on Thor’s face.

They barely make it out, but they do, and Romanoff nods at him and Stark slaps him on the back and Rogers insists on giving him extra pay.

Rogers stands in front of him with his wide shoulders and blue blue eyes and nods at him like Romanoff did, then shakes his hand and says “Quick thinking, son,” as if he’s not a mere year older than Clint himself. His face is tanned and his arms strong and Clint doesn’t struggle to imagine him as an older man, still fit and steering The Avenger as if he hadn’t already sailed all the seas there were to sail.

They’ve barely left the sirens behind when Romanoff calls “Man overboard!”

Clint has never met a siren before, and he doesn’t realize he’s meeting one now, but it goes a little like this:

They pull up a man in a tattered pair of pants and brown hair to his shoulders. He’s shirtless, and barefoot, and his face is tanned as if he's only ever lived under the sun.

He’s the most beautiful looking man Clint has ever seen.

The thing about sirens, Clint learns, is that when a human falls for one they fall hard, and it goes a little like this:

Clint helps Thor carry the man to the infirmary, then sits with him, and when he wakes Clint looks into brown eyes and somehow falls faster.

His name is Barnes, and he knows Rogers from when they were young, and Clint watches with some strange thing churning in his gut as the two spend the days together.

Clint watches when Barnes isn’t looking, but Romanoff gives him a look that says she knows something she thinks he does, and Banner sighs like he knows something he knows Clint doesn’t.

He misses the looks that Barnes sends back.

There's an empty space where Barnes's left arm should be, so Stark crafts him a new one, and Barnes joins Clint in hauling sails and helping Rogers decide where to go next. They steer clear of where they found him and no one says anything. He says he doesn’t remember what happened, but anyone with eyes knows he’s lying even if they don’t know why.

Clint has always been best at seeing from a distance.

He watches Barnes from the lookout, then watches Barnes in lookout, then watches Barnes some more as he goes from Rogers to the deck to the sails.

Something burns hot on Clint’s cheeks these days, and he asks Romanoff if she’s noticed the sun getting hotter. She laughs in response, but when Clint turns to Stark for help the other man just chuckles, and Clint is just as lost as before.

The thing about sirens is that they crave water like they need air, and Clint is so familiar with the idea of drowning on dry land that he can’t help but follow Barnes into the water.

Clint has gotten into the habit of talking to Barnes—Bucky, now—anytime they cross paths, which on a ship their size is a lot.

When pirates attack, Bucky flies overboard, and Clint follows.

Except Bucky is really good at swimming, Clint not so much, and it ends up being Bucky dragging Clint ashore on a nearby island while they watch the two ships battle it out.

When the battle is finally over, and Clint closes his eyes to rest, he doesn’t hear Bucky singing to him.

He follows his heart anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> it's a bit rushed at the end but i hope you all liked it anyway
> 
> i have a tumblr account, @bookdancerfics, so feel free to stop by and bug me about writing!


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